Naruto of the Sannin
by ThreeJewels
Summary: After his battle with Pein, Naurto gets hurled back in time. He lands smack in the middle of the 2nd Great Ninja War. Can he really achieve his goal and end the cycle of hatred? Can he save the future? And what of the teenage Sannin? R&R.


**A/N: **This story takes place at the end of Chapter 448 in the Manga. From there things diverge significantly.

I don't own Naruto, otherwise Pein would have lived. And I'm so tired of the Sharingan… why couldn't we keep the Rinnegan around? Oh well, I guess we'll just have to keep beating that particular dog to death.

Enjoy!

000000

"So I… I'll believe in what he believed in. I won't kill you. That is my answer" said Naruto.

Nagato sat in his mechanical contraption, completely shocked by the answer of his master's other pupil.

"We studied under the same master," Nagato began, "so I told you before that we should be able to understand each other. I was just joking then, but…" he paused.

"You are an odd kid" Nagato declared, "you remind me of myself when I was younger…"

"Nagato…" said his life long friend Konan, somewhat puzzled yet understanding how hard this must be for Nagato.

"I couldn't believe what Jiraiya believed in… or in the man himself. But you… you chose a different path. In you I can see a different future…"

Nagato brought his arms up out of the machine he was encased in and made them into a seal. Naruto tensed for a moment thinking it was another attack. But sensing no killer intent, he realized it was nothing like that.

"I… will believe in you. Uzumaki Naruto" Said the emaciated Pein.

"I will do what I can to help you," he said, "this is a Jutsu handed down by the Sage of the Six Paths. It can only be used by one who holds the Rinnegan. It's power… is to grant the wish of the user. Any wish."

At hearing this, Naruto was stunned. A jutsu that could grant wishes? How could such a thing even be possible?!

"However, there are some limitations," continued Nagato, "This Justu can't affect the consciousness of any other being. It is powerless to make people do anything differently than they would normally do. And the reason I haven't used it before… is because it most likely will kill me when I cast it."

"Wait Nagato!" shouted a suddenly panicked Konan, "There really is no need to use that Jutsu! In your current condition you'll definitely not survive! Nagato..!!"

"Konan, don't try to stop me. I have already made my decision." He gave her a look. Konan, with much hesitation, backed down and nodded her consent for him to continue.

Naruto for his part still couldn't completely understand. "Why Nagato? What do you intend to do with that Jutsu?" he asked.

"I will use the Jutsu to create the conditions that will most likely enable you to succeed in your mission Naruto… for me and Jiraiya and your dream… to bring an end to the cycle of hatred." Nagato began making a series of hand seals. The tree they were in suddenly started to strain and groan with the pressure.

Naruto for his part was starting to get very alarmed. "Wait Nagato! What will this Jutsu do?! Nagato!"

"I don't know," said Pein as he continued to do dozens of hand seals, "this Jutsu will use all its powers to grant my wish. My wish is that you succeed in your dream. But the power of this Jutsu won't be enough to grant our wishes. Once its effects take place, the rest will be up to you. I am passing my will to you Naruto. Don't disappoint me."

"Nagato, wait!" shouted Naruto, and he lunged at Nagato. He wasn't about to let Nagato kill himself!

But it was too late.

"Rinne Ken no Jutsu!" (Samsara Sword Jutsu) shouted Nagato, completing the jutsu.

Suddenly the entire inside of the tree they were in began to be covered by one huge seal. Naruto froze and watched as the seal spread all over the floor and the walls, glowing faintly with a green and black light. In seconds it covered every possible surface.

"Nagato!" Naruto shouted with worry and some fear, sensing the Jutsu was about to reach its peak. Then the seal began to give off a white light, so bright that Naruto was forced to cover his eyes.

"Nagatoooo!!" shouted Naruto one more time, and then the world went black.

000

Naruto found himself on the hard ground, disoriented as he woke up. He shook himself and sat up, wondering what in the world had just happened. He looked around the place: there was no sign of the large origami tree that had housed Nagato here on this mountain. In fact there was no trace of Nagato or Konan or anything at all. Naruto examined his surroundings. The orange clad shinobi was sure this was the place Konan, the fake tree, Nagato and his huge machine had been just before he lost consciousness. There was nothing now, not even some disturbed mud or dirt. Just how long had he been out?

Naruto got up, and turned his gaze towards Konoha in the distance. His eyes widened and his mouth hung open at what he saw before him.

The entire city of Konoha was there, intact! Naruto closed his eyes and rubbed them, thinking maybe his eyes were fooling him. But when he looked again, there it was. The Hokage tower, the walls, the buildings. It was too far to make anything in detail, but there was no doubt. Konoha had somehow been mysteriously restored.

Naruto was stunned and not sure what to think. What had happened? Had Nagato's Jutsu restored Konoha? Is that what was going to help him achieve the dream of Nagato and his Sensei? To Naruto it made a certain kind of sense. Without Konoha, his home, he figured his chances of finding the answer would become much worse in the long run.

Without knowing what to think, but filled with overwhelming joy, Naruto raced down the mountain towards Konoha. Though he couldn't really bring himself to forgive him Nagato really had been not so bad after all… though his methods were twisted, his goals were good. It was the same goal he and Jiraiya shared. Naruto was grateful to the man and touched he had given his life to restore Konoha.

As Naruto got closer to the village, something was starting to feel a little off about the countryside. A lot of the same landmarks were there, but they were overgrown or seemed to have different vegetation in some areas. As Naruto passed the area where he was sure Nagato's final body and him had fought he started to seriously feel a little worried. Where there should have been nothing but torn up earth and rubble thanks to that weird Jutsu Pein had used that made a giant ball of rocks in the sky, instead the earth was covered in trees and grass like nothing had ever happened. How was that possible? How long had he been out after Nagato's jutsu?

Suddenly Naruto felt a presence, and an attack from above. Naruto stops in his tracks as a handful of shiruken embed themselves in his path. He looks up. Enemies? "Show yourself! Who are you? Stop hiding over there!" he shouted. Naruto quietly made a few discreet preparations for a fight.

In the trees above appears a Konoha shinobi, clearly identified by his forehead protector. Next to him along the branches appear three kids, two boys and one girl also wearing a Konoha headband. They couldn't have been older than 12 or 13.

Naruto was torn between being annoyed at the warning attack and being elated to see fellow Leaf shinobi. Hopefully he could get some answers. Naruto controlled his annoyance and asked in a friendly tone, "Hey, what's the big idea behind the attack? And more importantly what happened? Is everyone ok? What happened to the village?"

The Jounin (it was clear that is what he was, this had to be a Jounin with his genin team) looked at him coldly. "I don't recognize you," he said to Naruto in a flat severe tone, "state your identification code."

Naruto gaped at the man. Identification code? What the heck was he talking about? There was no such thing that he had ever heard of. About this time Naruto started to realize something was wrong. He didn't recognize the Jounin, a man in his late twenties and spiky brown hair with a nasty scar over his left eye. Naruto though he knew who all the Jounin in Konoha were, they only numbered around one hundred after all. This man he had never seen before.

But more troubling were the genin. As he looked at them, they had to be around Konohamaru's age. In his time visiting the boy and visiting Iruka sensei, he had learned the faces of just about every student in the academy in that age group. He had never seen any of these three kids before. What in the world was going on?

And it was obvious they meant not to let him pass. Naruto started to sweat a little. The only explanation that came to mind was that a _lot_ more time than he had hoped had passed since his fight with Nagato. Just how long had it been?

"Hey," began Naruto, "you may be new, but maybe you've heard of me. My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm a Konoha shinobi. Please go and tell baachan that I'm here, I'm sure she can clear this up."

The man's gaze hardened on him. "What? I'm not going to go into town and tell your supposed grandmother or anyone else anything. I'll ask you for the last time, state your identification code." The threat in his voice was not hard to pick up on.

Naruto hit his face with his palm in frustration. Of _course_ no one would know he called the Hokage baachan, only a few people would know that's what he called her. "I mean," he tried again "go tell Tsunade, Tsunade the Hokage, Tsunade of the Sannin! Tell her that Naruto is here. I'm a Konoha shinobi through and through she can vouch for me" said Naruto in a pleading tone.

All of the four above him stiffened, as if getting ready for action. Ah crap. Had he said something wrong? He didn't have to wait long to find out. "What stupidity is this?" spat the man, becoming more agitated and lowering into more of a fighting stance. Crap, things were getting out of control fast! "Senju Tsunade may be a great shinobi, but she's far from being the Hokage you idiot, and there is nothing called a Sannin here in Konoha. Everyone knows who Konoha's Hokage is. You must be either a total lunatic or an incompetent spy." The man reached behind his back slowly for a weapon in his pouch. The genin moved to do the same thing. Crap, this was really _really _getting out of control!

Naruto put his hand up in front of him in a defensive posture, trying to seem harmless. "Now, now see here I realize I might have been gone for a while…" he tried to explain "but last I was here Konoha was under the Godaime Hokage so you know, it might have been some time ago… you see I was caught in this Jutsu and then…"

"The _Godaime_ Hokage?!" the man said incredulously, "You really are a fool boy. The current Hokage is only the Third, not the Fifth! Enough of this! Positions Alpha!" the man said. The kids began to move along the trees, moving to surround him. "We're going to capture you and take you back to Konoha for interrogation" the man said to him menacingly.

Naruto for his part was looking at the Jounin like he had grown another head. The Third? The old man? The old man was dead! What the hell was this stupid fool talking about? Naruto was finally starting to lose his temper.

He pointed his finger at the Jounin and shouted, "Hey, you! Look stop making stuff up, the Old Man died years ago ok! I was at his funeral! There is no way the Third is alive! And what is this challenging me before I even get to the gates? There are never any checks until the gates, baka!" he shouted at the Jounin.

The older man looked at him with disdain. "Is that supposed to be a threat on the life of the Hokage? You really are a fool to be so open about it. We are at war with Suna and Iwa in case you didn't know _that_ either you imbecile. It's our job to catch idiot infiltrators like you before you can make it into the village. Enough of this! Attack!"

The four shinobi around him rained kunai and shiruken down on him. Naruto was surprised but moved instantly, jumping to the side to avoid the assault and rolling to his feet.

Then the Jounin was on him, jumping from the tree and slashing with his kunai. Naruto dodged the strike and grabbed the man's arm, using his own momentum to throw the man head over heels. In a surprising bit of agility the man twisted his body in the air and landed on his feet, glaring at Naruto with cold eyes. Naruto could see this guy was a veteran with quite a bit of skill, but what else could he expect from the elite of Konoha?

"Guys, now!" the Jounin shouted. Naruto looked down. Some of the kunai that had rained on him earlier started to burn at the hilt. _Crap, hidden explosive tags! These guys are really going at it seriously!_

The tags detonated, and as far as the Jounin could see the blonde teen was completely engulfed by the explosion. When the dust and smoke finally cleared, however, there was no body. The boy was nowhere in sight.

"Dammit!" Cursed the Jounin. He had not sensed when the blonde had escaped during the explosion. As he looked around, the team leader could not sense the blonde's presence anywhere in the area. The man with the scar over his eye gritted his teeth. The enemy had escaped. The plan had been for him to finish off the blonde as he tried to flee from the explosion. The fact that he, a Jounin, could not tell how the boy had escaped the blast or where he had gone spoke volumes about the skill of this latest spy. There was no doubt in his mind that the boy was an enemy spy, maybe even one with orders to assassinate the Hokage.

Still there had been something off about the boy. The act of a confused kid wearing a Konoha headband spouting nonsense that anyone in the Land of Fire could tell him was incorrect didn't make any sense. He shook his head. He would have to remember what the boy said word for word and put it in his report, even if it was a bunch of idiotic gibberish. In war you never knew what small thing could prove to be an advantage.

"Ok team," he said to his genin putting his weapon away, "that spy got away, but don't worry about it, he'll never make it into town. Let's head back and report."

"Hai!" came the chorus from the young shinobi.

000

As soon as he had sensed danger, Naruto had made a few Kage Bushin and hidden them away in the woods. It always pays to be prepared, one of the few Shinobi rules that he actually remembered. This time it had proven true.

A simple substitution with one of his clones after he threw the Jounin was all it took. He was confident the Jounin wouldn't notice it as the man tried to right himself in the air, and he knew from personal experience a genin wouldn't be good enough to spot a substitution from a higher level ninja. He was glad his preparation as soon as noticed their presence had been enough to let him get away without having to engage in a real fight. That Jounin and those kids had meant business.

Naruto had gone to a small hill near Konoha. It was a place he was really familiar with and he knew it would allow him to hide himself and be able to spot incoming people at the same time. He needed a safe place to sit and think.

In truth, Naruto was seriously freaked out to be attacked by fellow Leaf ninja. At first he thought maybe he had been gone too long and had been declared a missing nin, but after thinking over what had happened that was obviously not the case.

Naruto found a good tree that allowed him to conceal himself and have a good view of anyone who could be coming close. There, he started to think. Lots of things didn't make sense. The Jounin had seemed sincere to him in everything he said. How could he not know who the Sannin were? Every three year old in Konoha had at least heard of them.

At first he had been thinking he had somehow missed a few years and woken up later in the future, but that didn't make sense now. If he was in the future, how come the Jounin didn't know there had been a Godaime Hokage? And then there was the insistence that the Third, the Old Man was still alive. If that was really true, there was only one explanation. Naruto swallowed hard.

Either he was in some strange future time where the Third was a zombie who had brainwashed everyone, or Naruto had somehow been thrust into the past. To be perfectly honest Naruto didn't know which one was more plausible.

But as he considered the possibility of being somewhere in the past, some things started to make a little bit of sense. The Jounin knew who Tsunade was, but said she was not one of the Sannin. In fact he said there was no such thing as the Sannin. Maybe there were no Sannin yet because the whole thing with some salamander guy that Jiraiya had told him about a hundred times hadn't happened yet. After a battle that salamander guy was the one who gave them the name of Sannin. That thing that was ancient history to him maybe hadn't happened yet here. Could that really be true? Though thinking of it as a possibility was making Naruto really uncomfortable, he had to admit that it fit.

Also there was the bit about Konoha being at war with Suna and Iwa. In one of the occasional but regular boastings of Ero-sennin about why he was so great (when he could spare time from his porn) Naruto remembered hearing more or less the same story over and over again.

_It was at that time, when Konoha was at war with Suna and Iwa and engaged in conflict with Ame and other smaller nations that I became a Legend and a Hero throughout all of the elemental nations! Yes, it was during the Second Great Shinobi war that me and beautiful Tsunade… _

The realization struck Naruto. Is that where he was? Had he gone back in time and ended up in the Second Great Shinobi war? Naruto's had was starting to hurt. This was too much to take in all at the same time!

He made up his mind. There was one thing that would tell him if he was really in the past. One thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Naruto made three clones and had them all henge into the three genin he had seen earlier that day. He himself changed into the Jounin. Satisfied after looking each other over, Naruto raced to a hill outside of Konoha where he knew in the distance you could still get a nice view of what he wanted. He put on some speed, as the sun was beginning to set. Luckily for him, he didn't meet any other Konoha shinobi along the way this time.

He arrived with just enough daylight left. Naruto stood and gaped as he saw with the last rays of light what he was hoping, dreading would prove his theory about going back in time. And there it was. Hovering proudly over Konoha, the faces of the Hokage's watched over the citizens and shinobi and kept the village safe.

All three of them. There were three faces of the Hokage's. Naruto stood there gazing in the direction of the monument long after the sun had set. If he needed proof he wasn't going to get more than this. He couldn't believe it. But he felt he couldn't deny it any longer. Inexplicably, impossibly, and against all possible odds, Nagato's jutsu had hurled him into the past.


End file.
